Eating balut in the Philippines

Balut is perhaps the Philippines most notorious street food. It’s an duck egg that’s intentionally unpasteurized to create a fertilized embryo inside it. You can get a near fully formed chick if you’re lucky – complete with beak, feathers and other features you’ll normally associate with a duck.

Well, a duck to be anyway, since it’s been boiled, it’s never going to hatch. ;)

Balut is also known for it’s eww factor with an almost ridiculous aversion bordering on stereotypical squeamishness.

I think there was a Fear Factor episode where the final contestants backed out from eating it. I honestly don’t get what all the fuss is all about – it’s just an egg…with a duck as a bonus. Heh.

I managed to get one that has a relatively intact and grown chick inside, complete with a beak and feathers. I reckon that’s the best kind – crunchy and well, feathery.

The balut is kept in local cardboard insulated wood buckets and wrapped in layers of cloth to keep them warm – it’s quite nasty if you eat it cold coz part of the goodness of balut is the broth that comes out of the egg.

The street venders sell it with a twist of salt in a conical newspaper wrapping – I got 2 balut eggs for 50 pesos (about RM 4). You’re supposed to eat it by cracking open the top of the balut egg, adding salt and slurping out the delicious juices before eating it.

I ate the first one without salt to get a more unadulterated experience and the second one with salt on the advice of the vendor. I preferred eating it without salt, the soup tastes almost exactly like chicken broth, and the half formed duck added a bit of texture and crunchiness to it.

You can see the juices from the balut dripping down my hand in this photo. I’ve eaten balut before, it should have no offensive odors despite a lot of reports claiming otherwise – this is confirmed by a Pinoy friend of mine, who first introduced me to it by bringing it all the way from Manila to Sibu, causing a three day delay before I ate it. Heh.

Here’s a video of me eating it in a hurry (it was a high traffic area) and the associated local bystanders watching with interest and asking if I liked it.

There are a lot of myths associated with balut with claims such as improving male vitality and potency. That will put Pfizer and GSK out of business if it were true. ;) Similar claims have been made on dog meat, snake blood and bull’s penis. I am inclined to disregard all those and just eat it for the experience and taste.

How does balut taste like? Well it just tastes like a regular boiled egg, except balut has a rich duck broth and a crunchy texture where the half formed chick resides. Xinxian agreed and added that it felt like she was eating egg shells.

I highly recommend that you try balut if you’re ever in the Philippines – it’s delicious in its own way and it’s one of those things that you have to try when you’re there. :)

wah bring me with you to travel. U always try all the exotic stuff! XD eating Dog meat will make other dogs hate you for 1 week or until the dog scent on you went away. Snake soup is pretty nice. Vietnam style duck egg is more cooked that balut. =)

I worked with a lovely Filipino woman in a cafe a few years ago who mentioned this dish. We were eating the surplus hard-boiled eggs from the huge batch that we cooked every night to make egg-salad. She said something like: “These are good, but do you know what’s better?..”
“What?”
“Balut. It’s an egg with a chick inside. It’s delicious.”
Sadly I’ve been unable to test her assertion. Someday maybe.

from my memory and personal knowledge passed down by the old folks…BALUT is not an indigenous Filipino food but the technique was brought to the country by the chinese…it was popularised in the Tagalog region where most of the early chinese who came settled down and do some business…Philippines was hospitable and accommodating to chinese as there was a growing war in the horizon at that time…now that these chinese are well settled and successful in the Philippines, some misguided Phil-chinese are now saying things and condemning their host and adoptive country with the help of their relatives in the mainland…THIS FACT SHOULD BE KNOWN TO ALL CHINESE …both in and out of the Philippines…

Thanks for bringing that up, I’ll love to read more about it. I personally haven’t heard of duck embryo eggs in China but then again I didn’t travel to a lot of places, and it’s a huge place.

I’m Chinese myself – any idea how the name “balut” came about. Etymology of a word can sometimes provide clues e.g. in Malaysia there’s a historical character called Hang Tuah which was very good in martial arts.

It’s been put out that Hang Tuah is not a Malay native at all but a Chinese trader who settled here that’s well versed in Chinese martial arts, thus the name “Han (for Han Chinese) Tu-ah (his name)”. It was never looked into much though coz of sensitivities.

Wow, reading all the comments in the past, I can’t believe no one is willing to try duck eggs! But then again, I’m Vietnamese, and I grew up eating this AND the fermented bean curd. (Okay not so much with the bean curd but I do like it.) I usually eat duck eggs with salt and pepper mixed with lime and Vietnamese coriander. (GREAT! Now I want some!)

But seriously though, everyone else is missing out. I guess everyone is too squeamish about it. I would eagerly take this over chicken eggs anytime. :D